He pulled his boarding pass out of his back pocket. “Yep, I sure am.”
“Then I’m moving.”
The flight attendant standing behind him in the aisle stopped her. “You’ll have to stay where you are. These are the last two open seats. We have a full flight, and Mr. Jones is our last standby passenger.”
Mr. Jones. Tristan turned back toward the window and rolled her eyes. Addressing him in such a respectful way was a waste of words. There wasn’t a single thing about Harris Jones that was respectable. He was a dirty, rotten scoundrel. In fact, scoundrel was too good a word for the bull rider. He was the devil incarnate as far as she was concerned.
“Tristan McCullough. Fancy meeting you here,” he said after he fastened his seat belt.
“If a stranger were sitting where you are, I’d ignore him the same way I’m going to ignore you.”
Harris leaned over, resting his arm on the seat between them. “You can’t ignore me, and you know it,” he drawled. The way he said it made her skin crawl. And it made her think of Bullet.
Since she met him, Tristan had been comparing Bullet to Harris. Having him seated near her showed her how wrong she’d been. Bullet was nothing like this slimeball.
The way Bullet spoke to her was seductive and soothing. Bullet made her feel safe. Deep down she knew she could trust him. Harris made her feel sleazy. She couldn’t wait to get off the plane and take a shower. Had he always worn cologne? And that much of it?
Since Grey was still asleep—snoring in fact—Bullet would wait until he was out of the rig to call for help unloading the broncs. Dead tired though he was, he knew it would be hours before he could catch some shut-eye. As soon as Grey was awake, he’d be rarin’ to play, and Bullet would not be able to deny him.
Bullet recognized the SUV in the driveway as soon as he pulled up to the house. Lyric was right; it was a good surprise. There were lights on, inside, so either one of the ranch hands had let Gram in, or showed her where the front door key was hidden.
“Grey, time to wake up,” he said softly to his son. “Gram is here to see you.”
“Not just Gram, Yaya and Poppa are here too.” Bullet’s father came up behind him, a big grin on his face. “Now, hand over my grandson,” he smiled.
Grey buried his head in Bullet’s shoulder.
“Someone’s shy,” said his mother, coming up behind them. Grey peeked over Bullet’s shoulder and held his arms out to his grandmother.
“It’s her voice,” Bullet’s father said. “Soothes the soul.”
Bullet hugged his dad after he handed Grey to his mother.
“Oh, my goodness, he’s heavy. What have you been feeding him?” she teased.
“I’ll take him, Guinie,” offered his dad.
“No, it’s been too long since I held him. You wait your turn.”
Bullet followed his parents into the house, where Gram was waiting.
“I can’t believe Lyric kept our secret. She did, didn’t she?” Gram pulled him into a big hug, just like Dottie’s. He wondered if he had remembered it right, how similar they were.
“She did,” he answered and rested his head on his grandmother’s shoulder.
She ran her hand through his hair like she used to do when he was growing up. “Long drive?”
“Yeah. Long week before it too.”
“Have a seat, and let me get you a beer,” offered his dad. “You still drink beer, don’t ya?”
“You must not have checked the fridge, or you wouldn’t be asking,” Bullet answered. “There’s plenty in there. At least there was when I left.”
Gram had his favorite dinner waiting on him, and she and his mama whisked Grey off for a bath. His daddy sat down at the table with him.
“Not hungry?”
“You know your gram, she made sure I had three helpings before she let me leave the table.” Nate rubbed his hands over his stomach. “You gonna ask what we’re all doin’ here?”